The US Government is moving apace to develop doctrines and capabilities that will allow the Department of Defense (DoD) to exploit Cyberspace for military advantage, and the role of computer networked operations (CNO) has taken on greater importance with the rise of network-centric warfare. Unfortunately, extant CNO organizations are slow to anticipate and react, and as such do not operate well within their highly dynamic environments. Contingency Theory research provides considerable knowledge to guide designing organizational structures that fit well with various mission-environmental contexts, and as such it offers excellent potential to inform leaders and policy makers regarding how to bring their CNO organizations and approaches into better fit, and hence to improve performance. In this chapter, we identify a candidate set of organizational structures that offer potential to fit DoD better as it strives, and struggles, to address the technological advances and risks associated with CNO. Using the Organizational Consultant (OrgCon) expert system to model and diagnose key problems and misfits associated with extant CNO organizations in the DoD, we propose a superior organizational structure for CNO that can also be applied to organizations in the international environment. Results elucidate important insights into CNO organization and management, suitable for immediate policy and operational implementation, and expand the growing empirical basis to guide continued research.
Computer network operations and ‘rule-with-law’ in Australia
